BOCA RATON, FL (April
7, 2009) –
Florida Atlantic University’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of
Arts and Letters’ department of visual arts and art history
announces the opening of two student exhibitions. The Spring Master
of Fine Arts (MFA) show will open on Thursday, April 16 from 6 to 8
p.m. in the Schmidt Center Gallery. The exhibition will run through
Friday, May 22, as well as remain open one hour before Summer
Festival Repertory Theater performances from Tuesday, May 26
– Sunday, July 26. The Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) show will
also open on April 16 from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Ritter Gallery. This
exhibition will run through Saturday, May 2.
Both galleries are
located on FAU’s Boca Raton campus, 777 Glades Road.
Gallery hours are
Tuesday through Friday, 1 to 4 p.m., and Saturday 1 to 5 p.m.
Both the receptions and
the exhibitions are free and open to the public.

The MFA exhibition presents the works of two
graduate students, Jessica Weber, a painter who incorporates mixed
media into her work, and Mark Macdonald, a ceramicist.
Both exhibiting
artists will be in attendance at the reception to discuss and
answer questions about their creative works, and are also available
for interview by appointment.

“Lineage,” the title of Weber’s
thesis exhibition, is a large-scale wall installation. It is
approximately 15 by 20 feet in size and is comprised of drawn,
painted, inked, stitched, glued and stuffed canvas that is hung,
dangled and tethered.
“In this body of
work I explore my experience of my family's dynamics and
dysfunction, combined with my family’s genealogy.
These are merged with
the invented then lived histories of my constantly mutating studio
creatures, resulting in what is my monstrous and adaptive surrogate
family,” said Weber.

Something that unites these two Masters of Fine
Arts graduates is their unique relation to their work and the
processes taken to create it.
While Weber
elaborately and delicately weaves tales of living subjects within
her work, shaped by the architecture that surrounds them and their
own genealogy, Macdonald takes a more materials-based approach
regarding his work, namely using “clay as a tool that shapes
fire, catches ash and enables a deeper investigation” into
ceramic arts.

As a ceramicist, Macdonald said his goals are to,
“strengthen the interaction between fire and object…to
draw attention to the unification of entity and the process by
which it is formed.”
Macdonald considers
fire an “entity” because “it has behavior, and
the unexpected things it does lead to discovery and
disaster.”
Recognizing fire and
ash as essential elements to his work inspires Macdonald in his
creative process.

The
BFA show, titled Futur-Us, presents 25 BFA graduate artists who
will receive degrees in graphic design, fine art and art education.
Their works include painting, photography, print making and
sculpture.

For additional information regarding the
exhibitions, contact the University Galleries at 561-297-2966.